MASH on MASH
by The people's Sgt
Summary: What if MASH the series existed in the universe of the TV show? The fictional characters of MASH and their fictional families discuss how their lives were portrayed in the book, movie and telivsion series.
1. Chapter 1

M*A*S*H on MASH

**A/N: What if MASH was actually based on a true story? In this story there really was a MASH 4077****th**** and MASH franchise is based on their lives. The characters and their families discuss the book, movie and TV show MASH.**

**The MASH franchise in this story only exists in the universe I created. No disrespect is intended toward the more talented directors, screenwriters and the author of the original book.**

** Some Characters like Hawkeye's mother and sister appeared in my other MASH stories. **

**I only own the rights to the original characters. Fox owns the rest.**

_Dr. Nathanial Pierce_

_Crabapple Cove Maine_

My name is Nathanial "Natty" Pierce. My father was Captain Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce Chief Surgeon of the MASH 4077th and my Mother is the former Major Margaret "Hot lips" Houlihan head nurse.

My father passed away in 1997. My mother is still alive and well and continues to live in Crabapple Cove. After my father retired in the eighties I took over his practice in town. My younger brother Daniel is a retired Army officer and our youngest sister Cora is a registered nurse in Boston.

MASH has dominated our entire life. Dad loved the television series. Mom didn't really care the movie or series but enjoyed the book. She never gives interviews about MASH. She hates Alan Alda saying "he reminds me of your father's bad habits. She does however talk to Loretta Swit.

Oh, by the way never ever refer to my mother as "Hot Lips". A tourist once did that and she punched him in the nose. The guy didn't press charges only because it was mother who hit him!

There are some facts I would like to set straight about what people saw in the movie and television series.

First off my father really got his nickname from my grandfather. Daniel Pierce was the town doctor and _Last of the Mohicans_ was his favorite book but he enjoyed reading other novels as well. It was also my father's favorite book. My name comes from the character Hawkeyes's real name Natty Bumppo. Hawkeye Pierce also had a mother and sister.

Martha Evangeline Pierce was my grandmother. She was a cross between the actresses Kathleen Hepburn and Lauren Bacall. She was born in Vermont and first came to Maine to be a schoolteacher in Crabapple Cove. She is the only person who got away with calling Mom "Maggie".

Aunt Abby became a teacher as well. She was actually my sixth grade teacher.

My maternal grandfather "Howitzer Al" Houlihan really was a retired Army Colonel. Mom's parents did divorce but both remarried. They never came to Maine to visit us at the same time however.

My parents were only in Korea together for about a year, 1951-1952 the period covered in the book and movie. The guy who wrote the book grew up in Maine near Crabapple Cove but served at a different MASH unit. He met my father after the war and they swapped war stories. The book was a mix of their war stories.

When Fox decided to make a TV series based on the movie the author directed them to Crabapple Cove and my father Hawkeye. From there other former members of the 4077th were contacted.

The television show was supposed to be a more accurate version of the 4077th but of course the writers took liberties with the MASH veteran's stories. Also stories from other Korean War veterans were included.

My mother only had one husband. "Donald Penobscot" is the made up name for her fiancé before coming to the 4077th. Mom gave one of rare interviews with the writers of _MASH _and mentioned that she was engaged to a Major while stationed in Tokyo. The engagement ended because the guy was cheating on her. She declined to use his real name since the guy was still alive and went on to have a successful career in the Army. She made the name up on the spot. Penobscot is the name of a river in Maine.

The writers decided they wanted my mom to get married so they promoted her fiancé to Lieutenant Colonel and used the fake name she made up.

Mom says it would have been impossible for her to get married and divorced in real life in the short period of time she was in Korea.

While we are on the subject of former loves let me tell you about Carlye Breslin. In the show she was my father's former love.

The real Carlye (not her real name) really did get stationed at the 4077th and left under the circumstances shown in that episode. However she wasn't married at the time and her future husband got into advertising after the war. Hawkeye never spoke to her again until after the episode aired. They met in Boston in a meeting arranged by CBS. The real Carlye is a grandmother living in Boston near my sister.

Trapper John and my father remained friends after Korea. I know the actor who played Trapper had issues with the creators of the show but Trapper and my dad got along fine. It is better if my sister tells that part of the story because Trapper John is her father-in-law.


	2. Chapter 2: The 4077th

**MASH on MASH**

**Chapter 2: The 4077****th**

**A/N: Some of things mentioned in this chapter are based on what it was like at one of the real life MASH units in Korea.**

**The hometowns shown are supposed to be where the characters live in 2010.**

_Walter "Radar" O'Reilly_

_Company Clerk MASH 4077__th__ 1951-1953_

_Ottumwa Iowa_

One of things that always bothered me about the TV show _MASH_ was the fact that they never had a set timeline. The TV people were always changing years. And how many Christmases episodes did they have?

The MASH shown in the movie and TV was built toward the end of 1951 when I arrived in Korea. I was the company clerk under Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake and later Colonel Sherman Potter, both fine men.

I got to the unit in September 1951. The TV show has me there in 1950 at the start of the war but I got there in 1951.

The hospital had just moved to its location. The 4077th was the last MASH sent to Korea. They got there in November 1950 from Japan. The frontline was up in North Korea then almost to China. In those days the MASH followed the fighting so they were always packing up and moving. They never had permanent buildings. Everything was in tents.

Oh before I forget, the location of the real MASH was not Uijeonbu. That other MASH the 8055th was there. That's where that doctor who wrote the book was. Our location was near there but our village didn't have a real name.

In September 1951 the engineers started building the tin hospital you know from television. The building was actually bigger than that. Our post-op ward could hold about 100 patients. On TV it looks like they only had a dozen beds.

The compound was bigger too. I guess they had to make the compound on TV smaller so you could see everything on TV. The actual camp was spread out more. The real hospital building took up half the compound you saw on TV but the camp set up was pretty much the same. The mess tent was right across the road along with The Swamp.

_John "Trapper John" McIntyre_

_Captain, Surgeon 1951-52 _

_Crabapple Cove Maine_

The Swamp was really the tent where the surgeons lived. It was located next to the hospital so if we were needed for an emergency somebody could get us quickly.

There really was a still in The Swamp. You see in real life hard alcohol was hard to get close to the front. The still was built to not just by Hawkeye and me but by others in the camp. You had several people who had backgrounds in chemistry and who knew how to make moonshine. We did not make gallons of the stuff. We made Just enough to make maybe a bottle of booze.

Sometimes we would add canned fruit to our moonshine and make what we called "MASH Schnapps". It was popular with the ladies.

There were other doctors at the MASH besides the surgeons. The other doctors acted as assistant surgeons when we had a lot of wounded. At other times they handled non-surgical duties like triage, post-op, sick call and other specialties. We also had a dentist all the time. In the television series the dentist disappeared but we always had one when I was there.

In all we had six to eight doctors and then we had some non medical officers attached to the unit. You never saw them mentioned on the television series or movie but they were there also.

The other doctors lived in their own tent with the dentist. The nurses lived in their own big tent. The real 4077th had at a minimum twelve nurses. On TV you only see about four nurses living together but in reality they all lived in one tent except for Major Houlihan who had her own tent that doubled as an office.

The helicopter pilots also lived at the 4077th with us. They never explained where the helicopters came from and where they went on the TV show. Well they had a detachment of four helicopters assigned to us. The helicopters had their own mechanics to get care of them. The choppers were parked on the lower chopper pad. The upper chopper pad, the one on top of the hill was kept clear.

_Maxwell Q. Klinger_

_Sergeant, Orderly/Company Clerk 1952-53_

_Honolulu Hawaii_

In the TV show they had me living in my own tent. I used to live with the other NCOs in one tent. When I started wearing dresses some of the other guys didn't want me living with them so the First Sergeant moved me into another tent by myself. When it became obvious that I wasn't really crazy and Colonel Blake wasn't sending me home I moved back into the NCO tent.

The 4077th had a First Sergeant. In both the movie and TV show they never showed the full staff. It looked liked Henry Blake and Radar ran the unit. Well that's not true.

The 4077th was like any other unit. Col. Blake was the Commander. Then Col. Potter took over. Major Burns was second in command then later a regular Army Major from the medical corps.

The First Sergeant was the senior enlisted for the company. He was the top soldier. He took care of the enlisted men in camp. If we screwed up then the First Sergeant dealt with us. He was the reason I was on KP on the time.

The kitchen was in a hut behind the mess tent. Eventually the mess tent became a building. It was a building when Colonel Potter took over. I don't know why the TV people showed the kitchen in a building but left the mess tent well a tent.

_Igor Straminsky_

_Private Cook 1952-53_

_Chicago Illinois_

I was one of the cooks at the 4077th. The Army actually taught me how to cook can you believe that?

In the TV show they portrayed me as an all purpose private that did all the dirty jobs in camp. The truth is I was one of three cooks assigned to the 4077th. We had a Staff Sergeant in charge and another private. We also had a bunch of Korean locals who worked with us.

The cooks were tasked with cooking three meals a day breakfast, lunch and dinner. We also made sandwiches for the people on duty in post-op during the night. In between meals our time was spent preparing for the next one so I was always busy. I never had time to dig new latrines or do other dirty jobs. I guess everyone remembered me working at the chow hall and told the TV writers that so I came to represent the hard working enlisted men.

After the hospital was finished the engineers built a mess hall. It wasn't much of a building. It had thin plywood walls with screen windows. In the winter we covered up the windows with plywood to keep the cold out.

The inside of the building had long tables and benches just like on the TV show. In the winter time it was the warmest building in camp besides the hospital.

You remember that episode where they were bowling in the mess tent? We actually did that with the tables.

_Walter O'Reilly_

We had a PX at the 4077th. You never saw that on the TV show. People had to get razor blades and tooth brushes from somewhere. It was in a tent next to the officer's club. It didn't sell a whole lot of stuff, just the basics. It sold razor blades, soap and stuff like that. You could buy candy bars and cokes there but you had there early.

The PX got resupplied about once a month. On that day there would be a line of people waiting to get in. The Hershey bars went quick. So did the Lucky Strike cigarettes. Sometimes the Sergeant that ran the PX would bring a case of grape Nehi for me.

_Maxwell Klinger_

The TV show devoted a whole episode to the how the officer's club was born and how the enlisted men were at first banned from getting in.

On _MASH _they had the O-club being built because Hawkeye and Trapper saved the life of some General's son. At first the enlisted men are banned from the club but by the end we G.I.s get in.

In reality it was the First Sergeant who got the enlisted men in. Col. Blake was going to have a club built anyway but he had trouble getting the engineers to build one. After the doctors saved the life of that General's son well the General called up the engineers and made things happen.

Anyway us enlisted men felt we were being cheated. We worked with the doctors and nurses everyday in the hospital and now they got a new club and all we had was Rosie's Bar across the road outside of camp. At Rosie's Bar Soldiers were getting into fights and getting arrested by the MPs (Military Police).

The First Sergeant told Henry Blake that he wanted the enlisted men to have a club so he could keep an eye on them in camp. Also the club wasn't going to make enough money on just the doctors and nurses. So Henry Blake let the enlisted have the club on some nights. Later on he just let everyone drink together. Sherman Potter kept that policy in effect when he took command.

Rosie's Bar was located just outside the camp just like on TV. There was a little village built around it. The people who lived there all worked for the camp in some way. The laundry lady had her place there and the kitchen workers lived there.

There were a few prostitutes that worked out of Rosie's Bar. The TV folks never went into detail about that but they were there. Our doctors would give the girls regular check-ups. The Army tried to get rid of the girls but they kept coming back so we made sure they were clean. As a result the girls at Rosie's became popular in our sector.

The Officer's Club didn't hurt Rosie's business. People still went there to get away from camp for a little bit. Rosie also sold food so if you were still hungry you could go there at get something to eat. Most of the food she sold came from the kitchen anyway.

_Walter O'Reilly_

Everyone thinks that the 4077th was out in the woods somewhere by itself. The hospital had neighbors all around. There were other units stationed near us. They were support units for the infantry up on the frontline.

There were engineers and maintenance units all around us. We also had a long range artillery unit near us. When they fired their big guns you thought it was an earthquake or something.


	3. Chapter 3: I Am not Hot Lips

**MASH ON MASH**

**Chapter 3: I am not Hot Lips**

**A/N: Sorry for the long wait for an update. I tried out various ideas for this chapter and none worked so I decided to keep it simple, stupid.**

**I added my own fictional character for this chapter to provide a cameo for a fellow writer on this site.**

_Sandra Sable-Martin_

_Shreveport Louisiana_

_Captain USANC_

_MASH 4077__th__ 1951_

_Head Nurse_

I was Chief Nurse of the 4077th prior to the arrival Major Margaret Houlihan. We only spent a few days together before I rotated out and went stateside. I was at the 4077th when it really was mobile, moving around Korea like a traveling circus. I was there before the period depicted in the television series.

Here is my background: I joined the Army in 1944 and served as nurse with a field hospital during the campaign to recapture the Philippines. My unit would have been part of the invasion of Japan if not for the atomic bomb being used in 1945. With the war over I decided to stay in the Army because the pay was good and I really didn't want to return to Louisiana. When the Korean War began I was stationed in Hawaii. I was sent to Japan as one the replacements for the nurses who were the original staff of the MASH units. As a Captain I was sent to the 4077th to become its second head nurse. I was only twenty seven years old at the time.

Before we moved into what would be the final home of the 4077th our unit had been in about a dozen different locations. We never had time to have fun and relax. Now we finally had a home.

We could now take showers and wash our clothes on a regular basis. The fighting slowed down enough where we weren't buried in wounded every day. You could now work a regular shift and have some time to yourself.

The previous commander was Colonel Block. He was a regular Army officer who had served in WWII. He didn't spend much time in surgery. He focused more on running the unit. The Colonel left the medical staff alone to handle its business. As a result he didn't have a personal relationship with the doctors and nurses. He was like the principal of a school. You only saw him when you screwed up.

Henry Blake was a surgeon first and commander second. He worked in OR with us and we identified with him. He would drink like everyone else. As head nurse I got along fine with him. He didn't bother me about the nursing staff and I didn't nag him about how the camp was being run. I just asked Radar for anything I needed.

Speaking of Radar, I remember when he first got to the unit. He really was a scared farm kid. In the TV show Radar can hear the helicopters before they arrive. At the real MASH we were notified by field telephone when to expect casualties. Radar had the ability to predict when the telephone would ring. To be honest it scared us at first. There was serious talk of having Father Mulcahy examine Radar to see if he was either a prophet or demon. Father Mulcahy convinced us that Radar was a just a man with an unusual talent and we accepted him after that.

Father Mulcahy was the first chaplain to actually live at the 4077th. At the start of my tour at MASH religious services were provided by the Chaplain of whatever unit we were supporting at that time. We had services provided by Catholic priests, protestant ministers and for about a month a Rabbi. The Rabbi is the reason I do not eat pork to this day!

The bad thing about being in a permanent location was that the Army found us. During our mobile period the MASH didn't have to be all military. We were understaffed most of the time so everyone officers and enlisted pitched in and worked together. Now that we were no longer mobile the brass started visiting us and they started insisting that we follow regulations.

I believe that is the reason Major Houlihan was sent to the 4077th. The powers that be decided the unit needed some career officers to run it.

I only knew Trapper and Hawkeye for a little while before I left Korea. People always ask if Hawkeye hit on me. Of course he did! I shot him down quickly. I told him I would never have anything to do with man from Maine as my great-grandfather and his brother both fought in the Louisiana regiment in the Civil War. My great-granduncle lost his leg fighting the Maine regiment at Gettysburg and he never forgave the men of that state for taking his leg.

The story was partially true. My great granduncle did lose a leg at Gettysburg but my family wasn't anti-Maine. Still it made a good story and Hawkeye left me alone after that. As for Trapper, I told him I didn't mess around with married men.

I don't recall Major Burns being anything like the character on the television series. He was more mean-spirited. He was always complaining about one of the nurses to me. I avoided talking to him except for work related matters.

I was also too much of a country girl for them. I would borrow one of the enlisted men's M-1 rifles and shoot at tin cans. I was considered the best shot at the 4077th.

Ginger and "Dish" were two of my nurses. You remember that episode about the clumsy nurse named Edwina? She was one of my nurses too. There is something I want to set straight for the record. Both the movie and the TV show have all of the nurses with seventies style long hair. We never wore our hair down. It was impractical. Also we didn't wear skin tight uniforms. Most of our clothes were designed for men and always fit baggy no matter how much you washed them.

The television show never explained why there was a high turnover rate for the nurses. In real life when I was at the 4077th most of served only a few months in Korea. The Army was short of nurses so we would start our overseas tour at a hospital in Japan and then be sent to the "big league" at a MASH. Sometimes you went back to work at a hospital in Japan before going home.

After leaving Korea I was assigned to the Army Nursing School at Fort Sam Houston Texas. I met my husband Dan, another WWII veteran recalled for duty in the Korean War. We married in 1953 when the war ended and I left the Army. My husband decided to remain in the Army and served for the next thirty years with two tours in Vietnam.

I gave birth to four daughters who ironically all went into the military as nurses. My oldest daughter retired as a Colonel and the two youngest left the army together and became registered nurses. My oldest daughter says she already knew how to run a nursing staff before she went to nursing school.

When the television series came out I shook my head and wondered what the hell happened to my hospital after I left.

I will address the number one question people ask: How do you feel about Margaret Houlihan becoming a household name as the head nurse of the 4077th?

I don't have anything against Margaret personally. The guy who wrote the book remembered a MASH with her as head nurse and the series writers copied the book so it is just a matter of timing. If I had arrived at the 4077th a year later then I guess the world think Sandra Sable was _the_ MASH chief nurse. There was actually a head nurse after Margaret and she isn't mentioned in the show either. At a MASH reunion one year all of the former head nurses of the 4077th took a picture together. It is one of my most prized possessions.


End file.
